Summary: The voice of God is essential in each believers life if they are going to have the resolve, stamina and endurance to make it through life with their faith intact.

Do you have what it takes to make it thru the tough times in life with your faith in tact?

Do you have what it takes to make it thru fear, disappointment, persecution, rejection, self doubt and failure?

Throughout history, many people have called this talent by the word…Determination.

Anthony (Tony) Robbins

Determination is the wake-up call to the human will.

Robert Hughes

A determined soul will do more with a rusty monkey wrench than a loafer will accomplish with all the tools in a machine shop.

Alexander Graham Bell

What this power is I cannot say; all I know is that it exists and it becomes available only when a man is in that state of mind in which he knows exactly what he wants and is fully determined not to quit until he finds it.

What is determination? It is pushing yourself to be all that you can be, no matter what the obstacle.

It is not giving up your cause in spite of seemingly overwhelming discouragement.

It is fighting the good fight, no matter how tired you become.

I see a lot of determined people in the world today. I see people who begin a race, as determined as anyone else to finish. But instead of finishing they fall short of their goal.

I see people who say that God has called them to something in life, only to watch them fail and give up, and resign to the fact that they must have been wrong about what God was saying.

There are many determined starters in the world, and far less are the number of those who finish the fight which they began.

The problem is the source of determination. We use motivational tools like family, career advancement, a good education, social standing, wealth and the power of a good mindset to propel us in life.

Those sources on their own are not enough to equip us to finish the journey that we have begun.

We need something more than can be found in the natural world.

To have what it takes to make it thru, we must have God as our source.

The first example that I want to look at today is that of Mary and Joseph, the woman and man that God put in authority of his son Jesus.

Mary and Joseph went thru incredible obstacles to carry out the purpose that God called them to in life.

Mary was at a very exciting time of her life. Betrothed to be married to Joseph she must have spent many hours dreaming of how life would be.

Then one day the angel came and delivered the supernatural news. The Holy Spirit was going cause for a baby to be born to Mary, a virgin. It was an unimaginable honor, and at the same time it introduced Mary to the biggest challenge of her life.

She would have to go thru the public humiliation of speculation. Her peers, her family honor, her fiancée, what would they think when they found out the pure, innocent Mary was pregnant.

This was just the beginning. When the baby Jesus was born it enraged King Herod, who feared that his rule was being challenged. And so Mary and Joseph had to run with the baby to Egypt.

The Bible doesn’t record what people said about Mary. But I’m willing to bet that there was a lot of hurt feelings involved, that some friends were lost, that disappointment was expressed.